Representation of Women in Advertisements

Angela Dunn

March 1, 2016

Blog 1

The Representation of Women in Advertisements

Each year, the Super Bowl championship is held and people around the world not only look forward to watching an exciting game of football, but they also look forward to watching the epic advertisements that are shown during the Super Bowl commercials. A various amount of corporations spend a significant amount of money to produce advertisements that will be aired during the super bowl commercials so that over 100 million viewers become interested in buying their products. In 2012, the Italian car company ‘Fiat’ produced an advertisement that was aired during the Super bowl. The ad was for the company’s new vehicle, the Fiat 500 Abarth and was labeled Seduction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrdKr-p3fWc

The commercial begins with an average young male who is dressed professionally walking down a city street. The male is dressed in business attire with glasses and is holding a coffee in his hand. As he continues to walk down the street, a tall attractive young woman wearing high-heels and a fashionable dress grabs his attention. The young woman bends over and adjusts her heel’s strap in front of the man. The woman’s beauty attracts the young man’s attention and he begins to stare at her as she is fixing her shoe. The woman then becomes aware that the man is staring at her and she immediately confronts him. She begins yelling at him in Italian and even slaps him across the face. While she continues to confront him, the camera goes behind her to reveal a scorpion tattoo on the back of her neck. The ad then takes an interesting shift and the attractive Italian woman stops screaming at the man and begins flirting with him. While this is happening, the young man looks mesmerized and is speechless by the interaction that he is having with such a beautiful woman. The woman then dips her finger in his coffee and licks the foam off of her finger, as she licks her finger a splash of foam falls on her chest and the man stares. The woman pulls the man closer to her by grabbing his tie and the man goes in to kiss her. Suddenly, the beautiful woman vanishes and is replaced with the Fiat 500 Abarth.

In recent super bowl advertisements, the roles in which woman are presented are a lot less objectifying and we’ve finally been able to see more gender equality in ads. The representation of the young woman in this Fiat commercial objectifies her as a car rather than a human. Researchers Amanda Zimmerman and John Dahlberg of Canisius College conducted a study that examined young, educated females and their feelings on women being sexually objectified in advertisements. As a result of their study, it showed that “most women still thought that advertisements treated them mainly as sex objects, showed them as fundamentally dependent on men, and found the portrayal of women in advertisements to be offensive” (Zimmerman&Dahlberg2). Our society shapes women to be dependent and controlled by men as well as being powerless objects who are constantly relying on a man. The assumption that women need men in their lives to support them is portrayed in advertisements on a daily basis.

Due to the fact that Fiat released this commercial during the Super bowl makes it apparent that they are trying to appeal to the male audience. Fiat objectified a young, sexy, Italian woman and compared her to the petite size of the Fiat Abarth. By doing so, the advertisement makes the male audience believe that by purchasing one of these vehicles they too will be in possession of something sleek and elegant like the young woman was portrayed. Fiat tries to make the audience believe that you do not have to own a huge truck or SUV in order to get the attention from a woman. Instead, you can own the petite Fiat Abrath and be just as macho and get just as much attention from women.

By presenting the young, beautiful woman as a car rather than a human exemplifies that the woman is being objectified as a sex object in order to sell a product. Many advertisers still believe that “sex sells” and will objectify women in order to make their product more appealing to the male audience. Although recently we have seen far less woman being objectified in advertisements, we still rarely ever see women in position of power in ads. "Studies of advertisements in a variety of men's, women's, and general interest magazines have categorized women in various roles: housewife, decorative element, sex object, and dependent on men;” (Zimmerman&Dahlberg71). The negative portrayal of women in advertisements has an effect on both women and young girls. Advertising veteran, Kat Gordon stated to CNN, "There's nothing wrong with women wearing dresses or cosmetics; it's the context in which you show the women," she said. "The images where women are lying around like corpses or positioned in a sexual way are not OK. Creating beautiful images of beautiful women can be art, even if they're ads." Gordon believes that there is a difference between showing a woman’s beauty and showing a woman as a sexual object used in advertisements.

By representing woman to be objects, controlled by men, and powerless in advertisements, the female gender gets the idea that there is no hope for them to be in control or to be in position of power. Gordon also stated, "The more women you have making media, the more media will make of women." Today, women make up 11% of creative directors, which helps create better portrayals of women in advertisements. Although 11% is not a large amount, it has increased from the 3% of women directors in 2012. Gordon believes that in order to make the representation of women in media more equal and fair, more women must be in charge of creating these types of ads.

The Fiat 500 Abarth advertisement is a representation of how women are negatively portrayed in media. The commercial objectifies the young woman by having her transform into a car, which is not humanly possible. Due to the fact that the commercial was first aired during the super bowl, it is evident that the ad was directed toward the male audience. The objectification of women in media has a negative effect on females of all ages and gives them false hope of being able to be in positions of power. As Gordon stated, more women need to be in control of producing media so that women in media are represented the way they should be. Since the Fiat ad aired in 2012, there has been noticeable process of women being less objectified and sexualized in advertisements today. The representation of women in media often times portrays women to be nothing but sex objects and dependent on male figures.

                                                      Works Cited

Zimmerman, Amanda, and John Dahlberg. "The Sexual Objectification of Women in Advertising: A Contemporary Cultural Perspective." Journal of Advertising Research JAR 48.1 (2008): 71-79. Web. 1 March 2016.

http://pure.au.dk/portal/files/10594/8_-_sexual_objectification_of_women.pdf

Grinberg, Emanuella. "How to Create Ads That Don't Objectify Women." CNN. Cable

News Network, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/living/women-not-objects-madonna-badger-feat/